Who are the "Occupy Cafe Stewards?"

Occupy Cafe was born out of the efforts of a group of people who first met through the FOUR YEARS.GO campaign for social justice, environmental sustainability and spiritual fulfillment. We share a common vision of a global "shift" or "great transition" that is under way and in need of support so that it accelerates to meet the fundamental systemic challenges we face on this planet.

As designers, hosts and providers of the "backbone infrastructure" for this initiative, we have adopted the designation of "Occupy Cafe Stewards." This term is inspired by Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities (Nancy White, Etienne Wenger and John D. Smith) and also by Peter Block's Stewardship. It suggests to us that we are caretakers and hosts, not managers or directors. We will take responsibility for the well being of the whole, while allowing it to evolve and emerge based on the collective intelligence of the community that forms within it.

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I'd like to offer to host a Cafe Call on "The flexible use of consensus process". I am a professional facilitator and author of the book Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making (New Society Publishers, 2011). I also curate the public service website http://consensusdecisionmaking.org. I believe I could help Occupy Movement facilitators and participants understand how the size and character of a group can influence the choice of effective adaptations to the use of consensus. Further, I can help people identify what elements of the discussion process lead to effective agreement building and what elements generate adversarial debate, regardless of the intent of finding consensus. You can find out more about me at my website http://groupfacilitation.net or by emailing me: tim@timhartnett.com.

This past weekend 40+ people participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. The discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what WE ended up proposing as the movement's "vision statement" to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

WE Envision:

[1] a truly free, democratic, and just society;

[2] where WE, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus;

[3] where WE the people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making;

[4] where WE learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others;

[5] where WE secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments;

[6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit ALL, not just the privileged few;

[7] where WE provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings;

[8] where WE value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible;

[9] where WE work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.